


A Space for Light

by Lyricaris



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow, The Underland Chronicles - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/F, F/M, Other, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25814626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyricaris/pseuds/Lyricaris
Summary: Vista was falling.She was surrounded by a thin smoke, just wisps of it, more vapor than any kind of fume. It emitted a strange pale light, which was the only illumination in the wide darkness she was plunging into.The shape of the space around her, however, was another question entirely.
Relationships: Gregor Campbell & Luxa, Luxa/Vista
Comments: 13
Kudos: 26





	1. ARC I-1 | The Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Vista discovers the Underland after the events of Gold Morning.
> 
> Content warnings for possibly traumatizing scenes, gore, and some explicit language.

Vista was falling.

She was surrounded by a thin tendrils of mist, just wisps of it, more vapor than any kind of fume. It emitted a strange pale light, which was the only illumination in the wide darkness she was plunging into. The _shape_ of the space around her was another question entirely. Spaces were her specialty, but beyond even the fatigue creased into her bones, there were several barriers interfering with her usual mental map of the terrain.

It had been years since she had been so thoroughly deprived of a surface in which to anchor her power, or the ability to use it. She was reminded, in a sudden horrifying flash, of Echidna's viscera, the acidic slime of mucus and blood that had enveloped her before the hallucinations took hold. She bit the inside of her cheek to ground herself and drive the memory away. No, this was something else entirely: an uncontrolled plummet into open air. The mist was also strangely obstructive. Vista guessed it could have been interfering with her power and subsequent ability to orient herself, but then again, not having the ground beneath her feet made it hard to judge.

The ripped skirt of her costume was billowing upwards toward her face. Even if she hit the solid ground in the next moment, she’d been falling for long enough that there wouldn’t be a chance to warp anything before she broke every bone in her body. Hopefully the pain would be minimal in the second before she lost consciousness. Panic had yet to reach her; terror was already radiating through every limb with each heartbeat, but it was an old acquaintance now. She couldn’t quite remember any perception without a tinge of fear. In the last few days alone, Vista had seen enough horror and destruction that adrenaline had become more of a dull ache. Regardless, at this stage she was thoroughly familiar with the fact that panic stalled action, which seemed to be the only option she'd ever had. Be there, and react.

All things considered, falling wasn’t the worst way to go. She had seen much more horrific demises in the last hour. Her _fatalistic_ mindset, which everyone had been so concerned about once upon a time, had never entirely abated. How could she disregard that reasoning, when death was such a bald fact now—not only in regard to her fragile existence, but the entire world’s? The universe had proved her right in its own cruel way. 

Vista let her eyes droop half-shut. The fall wasn’t entirely unpleasant; the thought that she should be falling even faster was nagging at the back of her mind, but she was too exhausted to parse that inconsistency. It didn’t matter. The mist around her was rather pretty, in all its luminescence. If she just relaxed, she could imagine that she was floating in a cloud, one illuminated against the sky just after a brief flash of lightning. A random thought, a lie to herself certainly, but comforting in its quantifiable danger. The image of a storm, nothing more or less than the wrath of natural splendor, that generated lightning—not the aftershock of a laser, or a galactic gun, or Scion.

 _Scion_.

The name coalesced her drifting thoughts back into an appropriate shape. They had blown the golden, immortal, fucking— _abomination—_ into pieces, and Vista had clung onto that breathtaking moment even as Weaver was hijacking her power and dropping her on faraway earths. It had not been pleasant, the seizing of her body and her abilities, but only in slowly coming back to her true self now did Vista realize how welcome the brief respite had been. A break from constant action, from charging forward, from making the next right decision. Weaver had given her direction in that last fight, when her once-formidable power had rendered her but a pawn to be tossed aside by the untouchable golden man. And for that, she was grateful.

Her last clear memory after the alien’s death had been standing at the mouth of a portal, seeing others step through and gather in an open space. Weaver—modified, mutilated—had stood rigid in her own little island, that radius of terrible influence. Vista had barely glanced at her. She had looked at the crowd, instead—for a face, a cape, any familiar stance or friendly costume. Defiant, first, and Miss Militia…Imp, Tattletale, Foil.

And then the screaming and cheering had erupted, and the answer to what she had been looking for had slapped her across the face. The other Wards—her teammates, her family. The last few days had been a sea of numbness, but the instant the cries had broken under a golden dawn she had closed her eyes and seen, once again, the laser rip through Chris. Recalled a flash of Dennis, mid-laugh, before he had become a ghostly shadow of himself within a pool of spirits.

She’d tried to find the boundaries of the vast emptiness she felt, which was not unlike a surface under her touch—distorted outward, entirely too wide and too long, rippling with effect. Except this space inside her mind she could not reach, could not let refold back into its original shape. Vista’s friends had been slaughtered. The world had been butchered. Weaver, the last heroine—for who was she to judge, now, the quality of the heroics—had disappeared. And so, Vista had turned away from her own little doorway, not through the portal but back into the world in which she'd been deposited.

It was a smaller, tiled space, grimy from use and windowless but filled with washers and dryers. Whatever earth this was, at least it was inhabited. Weaver had left her in a quiet basement laundry room, and the sight of such a mundane amenity had offered a strange sense of peace.

It was, perhaps, a place for a little rest.

Vista had walked over between the machines and slid down onto the floor with her back to a rattling white dryer. She had taken a long, deep breath. That was when the grate in front of her started to bang up and down. It was covering what seemed to be an air duct in the wall of the building. She had eyed it for a moment through half-closed eyes, too tired to muster a response beyond poking it with a boot.

But then a current of air behind the grate had sucked her forward, down into the darkness below.

And now she was falling.


	2. ARC I-2 | Spelunking

The mist was finally clearing. It had been nearly five minutes, at least. Vista could now see the dark circular walls of the enormous tube she had been tumbling through, illuminated by the bright wisps of vapor that were quickly fading away. She braced for the hard landing, but instead felt a strong, gentle updraft rise from underneath her. As she lost speed, Vista’s costume settled back around her body. A second later, her feet touched down on solid ground with barely a sound.

She collapsed immediately onto her hands and knees. _Still here._

A quiet laugh bubbled out of her. She would get up, she _would_ , in just a moment. She was still Vista, and Vista got the fuck back up, even when she’d fallen for miles. But first, a slow breath for her overtaxed lungs. It still caught her off guard sometimes, the automatic responses of her body in states of shock, when her mind had not yet registered the ordeal. Vista inhaled the cold air and let her eyes adjust to the utter darkness that enveloped her. She wasn’t in the least afraid of the dark, but it was distressing in its unfamiliarity. Having spent her life in Brockton Bay—and out on patrol at night more often than not—Vista had been used to the presence of light sources at all times. This was the complete absence of visibility, far beyond the reach of even starlight. It occurred to her that having landed in a basement and then plunged almost immediately underground, she hadn’t the slightest clue what time of day it was. 

Vista exhaled a slow, almost rhythmic breath. Sight wasn’t by any means her only means of navigation. She didn’t need her power to know she’d fallen far beyond the scope of human constructs; a subway or sewer system would have a far shallower layout. Vista just needed to get a feel for the place, and then a simple truncation of the walls could hypothetically bring her back to the surface. There might be difficulties in working her power with enough accuracy to not interfere with the infrastructure up there, in her current state of exhaustion. She was pretty sure she could pull it off, but the people that might be standing in the area between her and ground-level was another issue entirely. Never before had she been expected to work underground. There wasn’t any point of reference for the world above her head—what little context she had gotten from the laundry room meant she could have been anywhere from the Bay to Beijing. Not to mention how entirely out of her own skull she felt after Weaver’s bag of tricks. 

But one thing at a time. Vista rocked back so she was sitting on her heels, then pressed the palms of both hands to the floor. Not necessary, but she wanted the physical touch to settle her racing heart and mind. The stone beneath her was cold and strangely smooth, as if it’d been paved, left with smooth geometric ridges. She concentrated, let her second set of instincts unleash themselves over the terrain.

Holy _shit_.

The view was so astonishing she nearly pulled away. There was a wide corridor in front of her, behind two boulders that had been wedged together like a wall. She could feel the gentle slope of the corridor, one of hundreds, sprawling in front of her like ragged streets. Stone, miles upon miles of it. In front of her and to the right, she could sense where the stone dropped off into what must have been a wide expanse of raging water. Vista was tempted to call it a lake, but there were places where she could feel it breaking into rivers that ran through and below the ground. She could barely register the full shape and size; it may as well have been a small sea. Still, that wasn’t the most alarming discovery. That was about two miles ahead and to the left, through a myriad of twisting tunnels and solid stone, where Vista was pretty sure there was a _city_. 

It was set in a wide valley where the stone dipped downwards. Streets, and buildings—skyscrapers and residential areas—the largest of which felt somewhat like a fortress. The more crowded buildings of the city petered out into suburbs the more she searched, and into flatter areas where the stone ground receded. She had no explanations for a city so far underground, and she was suddenly reminded of fantastical things—Atlantis and buried kingdoms and ancient secrets. Except this wasn’t some excavator’s dream, because if her power was working properly, there were _people_ living in it. They were interferences, spots and clusters where she knew if she tried to distort the matter there would be a fixed resistance. The presence was most heavy in the buildings and city, but there were warm points all over in the tunnels, in vast plains and craggy landscapes that surrounded and surpassed the city.

Vista scrambled to her feet and backtracked to the stone wall, tilting her face up toward the hole she’d fallen from. There was nothing there; she could feel the shape of the jagged, impossibly wide void she had fallen through now, as if some giant had punched a well into the ground at least twenty feet across. But the only thing in that empty space was darkness. The mist had disappeared and its weak illumination along with it. Vista let her mental map stretch through the stone, forcing her senses into a vertical climb. It was unnerving, pushing her power through so much earth. She wasn’t used to this much saturation or depth; the closest comparison might be all the manipulation she’d done from rooftops. Still, no buildings back home were miles tall, and none were half as dense as the pure stone she was feeling now. Up there, towering above her head, she could make out where the ground was interrupted—it felt like shallow tunnels and transportation. So, it was big enough of a city to have a subway. While the information was useful, it also sent a disappointed chill through her. She couldn’t just bend the surface at her will here, not when she didn’t have an eye on what she was doing. She could pull an entire building or street into the ground. At least Scion hadn’t made his way to this Earth—or if he had, the damage had been minimal. There were people and life teeming up there, a completely different landscape from what had been her home. 

Vista froze, then, because there seemed to be a faint light coming through the crack in the wall on her right. There was only one choice left to her, and that was forward. She scrambled across the tunnel and squeezed through the crevice in the rock, the armor panels on her costume scraping against the stone. She emerged in the much bigger tunnel, as she’d known she would, and the first thing she saw was a torch held in the air above her head. 

It was clutched in the leg of a cockroach that was at least four feet tall. 


	3. ARC I-3 | Greetings

“Be you, Overlander, be you?”

Vista was already warping the ground in front of her. A second later, the stone at her feet had stretched and pulled on itself, putting at least twenty feet between herself and the cockroach. She would’ve preferred more distance, but the bug was surrounded by at least a half dozen of its buddies, and they were certainly large enough and alive enough that the lovely Manton effect was kicking in.

Vista’s back hit the shelf of stone behind her with a little clunk, and she realized her fists were clenched so tightly her fingernails were biting into her skin. She was thinking of Atlas, that enormous roach construct Amy had put together for Weaver way back when they had been fighting the Nine. But that bug hadn’t seemed to have any autonomy on its own, and it certainly didn’t _talk_. 

It had been the bug addressing her, hadn’t it? Two years ago, her younger self would have liked to chalk this all up to some lucid nightmare, but now she was all too aware of the far more terrifying things outside of her sleep. The cockroach had addressed her and didn’t seem particularly hostile. It was sitting upright, on its hindlegs, with the arm holding the torch in the air, the brown underside of its belly and the joints of several hairy legs facing her.

To be fair, it wasn’t the most gruesome thing she had seen. She inched forward, folding the floor back a fraction, wishing with a pang in her chest that she had one of Kid Win’s guns. At least if it did attack her, she could still make it difficult for the bug to follow.

“Were you…uh, speaking to me?”

“Strange changes, you make. You be Overlander, be you?” 

The bugs behind the one speaking—who were thankfully had all six of their legs on the floor—were hissing slightly and shifting around slightly. The roach addressing her had its two antennae extending into the air toward her, quivering.

“Overlander? What—what do you mean?”

“Be you human Overlander? Fell from above, fell you?” The roach leaned forward and seemed to be studying her closely. “Changed the ground, you changed.”

“I—fell, yes. And the ground, that was my power.”

“Power, Overlander has, strange power.”

Vista was leaning against the wall behind her for support. It was surreal, chatting with an enormous bug about being a cape, without having to fight it first. She was having a hard enough time deciphering their sentences, but then again she was glad they could speak to her at all. She wondered if they had parahumans on this Earth, or down in this strange land. Unlikely, but what did she know? There were powers in parallel dimensions, but the strongest ones had been on Bet…unless they had travelled here. The thought that hit her made the air around her warp again, the flickering light of the torch splashing against the bent walls.

Vista stepped forward and yelled into the expanse beyond the roach’s heads. “Weaver? Hey, if you’re down here, this better not be you! Sick fucking joke, after what you’ve done…”

She trailed off. The bugs seemed agitated, and were making clicking noises as they huddled closer together. 

“Yell why, Overlander, yell why? Angry, the Overlander be?” This was a second voice, from the group behind the torchbearer.

“I—no, sorry. Not at you.”

“Who be the Weaver, who?”

“Um…well, I guess you don’t know her. I thought she might be down here.”

It was a small relief, that Weaver wasn’t communicating with…these bugs. After that last battle, Vista had no idea the full extent of her power set anymore, and no intention of finding out.

“Know you the Warrior, Overlander?”

“I—who? No, I don’t know anything—anyone—down here.” This conversation wasn’t getting any of them anywhere. She took a breath to think. The roaches had addressed her as human—they clearly didn’t know who she was, but they knew _what_ she was. “Listen, uh, are there any other humans down here that I could talk to, maybe?”

“Other Underlander humans, there be. Take you to them, we take?”

What other choice did she have? The humans were probably in the city she’d felt out in the expanse of stone. Vista could still feel the winding paths in front of her. She could probably have gotten there in a few minutes if they’d been out in the open, but it would be entirely too easy to get turned around down here, considering the tunnels doubled back on themselves several times. Her power could shorten the space, but there were other living things she’d have to work around, and they might not all be as friendly as these bugs. With the general unease her companions were already expressing when she used her power, she decided to follow their lead for the time being.

The bugs had shuffled around so that there was a space behind the one holding the torch, and Vista stepped up next to it warily. Now surrounded by large hairy legs and hard brown shells, she suppressed a shudder. She’d never been a particularly queasy girl, but her past experience with Weaver’s bugs still had her skin prickling around large groups of insects, even those of normal size.

They set off, the cockroaches setting a fast and steady pace. Vista jogged alongside, imagining the absolutely bizarre image they must have presented—here she was, underground, going on a quick run with some cockroaches that stood past her knees. She could track their progress as through the maze-like tunnels, but it wasn’t easy. There were a lot more creatures down here than she’d originally thought, and there didn’t seem to be much organization to the paths they were taking. Between the twists and turns, the changing shape of the tunnel walls, and the general darkness, Vista knew that without her power she would have been hopelessly lost.

Following the terrain, she knew they would be sloping upwards soon. The floor rose sharply seconds later, and Vista slowed as they approached what felt like an open space in the rock face. Then she was stepping through a small cloud of something feathery, soft moving wings, and assaulted by a bright light. 

The tunnel had opened out into an enormous arena. The floor had evened out into a green moss that was a mix between artificial turf and the foam in rock climbing gyms. It bounced a little underneath her boots. The oval cavern was about fifty feet high, enclosed by a polished wall that reminded Vista a little bit of a large dam. The wall was ringed with bleachers, all empty. The entire stadium was abandoned, without any sign of life besides the fact that it looked well-maintained. 

She was about to question the roaches, who had all filed in at her side, until a golden shape flew into the cavern and descended upon them. It was an enormous bat, with a wingspan about twenty feet across. As the creature swooped down, Vista caught sight of the girl sitting on its back, a sweep of silver hair braided over her shoulder. The bat glided to a landing in front of them and the girl slid off with an easy elegance. 

She looked…well, if Vista had been back on Bet, she would’ve thought the girl was a Case 53. The hair might’ve reminded her of white hair on an elderly woman, except it still held a shade of blonde as well as a metallic tint. Her eyes were a bright violet. And her skin…she was nearly transparent. Vista could make out the veins in her arms. She was dressed in a silky beige dress with her hair tucked in the belt, and a thick golden tiara was set atop her head, fixed there by interwoven strands of the braid. She looked about Vista's age.

“My thanks to you for your guidance, Temp,” the girl gave a slight nod and bow to the lead roach, who returned the same gesture by bending its front legs and lowering its head. “I hear the Overlander fell just now?”

“From the Warrior’s first entrance, fell she,” the roach answered. 

The girl went a little rigid, but nodded and was just about to say something else when Vista stepped forward.

“Excuse me,” she interrupted, “but could someone explain exactly _what is going on down here_?”

The girl’s head snapped toward her, her expression shifting a little. She had aristocratic features, with strong angles to her face. Vista noted belatedly that there was a long scar, creased and a little faded, running from her left temple to her chin. The girl looked tired—weary, and a little sad. Like she had been looking for something and come up empty. 

She stepped forward, offered a pale hand. 

“Greetings, Overlander. I am Queen Luxa of Regalia, and I welcome you to the Underland.”


	4. ARC I-A | Presentation (Luxa)

The Overlander’s hand was slightly dusty, like she’d been crawling around on the floor, or perhaps recently been covered in rubble. Luxa shook firmly anyways, drawing on a mixture of what Gregor had taught her and the obligations of a queen. _Always stand strong, especially in front of strangers._

“I’m Vista.”

As they withdrew, Luxa realized the hand was one of the only parts of the girl’s arm not covered somewhat by an armor panel. At least, the queen assumed it was armor. It was made of dark green panels over the sleeve, and although both the material and color looked foreign in comparison to the plate Luxa had worn, she was sure it was there for protection. Vista was also in leggings under a green skirt that was covered in swooping, overlapping lines of green and white. The most disturbing accessory in addition to the odd clothing was the visor covering the Overlander’s face. It wrapped around the eyes, settling on the nose, and swept into the short blonde hair that had been tied back. Luxa’s best guess put this visitor at roughly her age—Vista was only an inch shorter—but it was difficult to tell. She had never encountered someone from above who looked so prepared for battle.

“Well met, Vista the Overlander.”

Aurora had hopped over to stand behind the queen. She dipped her head slightly and brushed against her bond’s shoulder as she spoke.

“It is a curious name, even for one who has fallen,” the bat mused.

The Overlander flinched a little. Her back was very straight, as if anticipating that even a twitch in the wrong direction might set someone off. Luxa felt herself tense in response. This Vista was dangerous. She would have known as much, even if the scouts who had been posted in the outlying tunnels had not passed on information about the Overlander’s unusual encounter with the roaches. They had mentioned something about hindered sight and a warped shape to the walls. Luxa had not bothered to decipher the message, instead making her way toward the stadium entrance immediately. She had already been on her way at the first hint of another fall, under the assumption that it was Gregor. In her excitement, she had not bothered to wonder why he would not have sent word to her first.

Now she did not know quite what to think. Vista did not seem to be carrying any weapons, and was intent on covering her face. The entire idea was counterintuitive; how did this girl expect to see, in the dark? Even the sturdy helmets Regalians wore left ample room for the eyes.

“You certainly know a lot about human names…above ground,” Vista was saying.

The question was ever so carefully modified into a statement. Vista was certainly a lot more careful than Gregor had been, and Luxa began to appreciate the wariness radiating off of her. She was the first Overlander to survive the fall since the Warrior himself, and the difference between them was night and day. Luxa’s old friend had been shocked by his surroundings, but still bold and curious and carrying a baby besides. Vista sounded not so much afraid to ask as she was simply cautious not to reveal her own lack of information. The queen had could recognize the move when she saw it; she used it regularly in her own diplomacy.

“We have had several visitors before, from the Overland. You were most fortunate to be cushioned in your descent by the currents, and survived the fall. The last Overlander who did so was a great hero to our people, a human named Gregor. Would you happen to know of him?”

Vista bit the corner of her lip for just a second. “What…what did he look like?”

“Light brown Overlander skin; the same as yours, albeit a shade darker. He was moderately tall, with brown hair and eyes.”

Vista exhaled quickly. “I know a Gregor, but I assure you he’s a different person entirely. I haven’t met whoever you’re talking about.”

Luxa felt a twisting sensation in her stomach as any hope of seeing her old friend died. It had been almost four years, and she had not received word for nearly half of that time. There was no reason for Vista to lie, and either way it did not matter. In the Overland, Gregor was safe, and Luxa reminded herself that he should stay that way.

“Then my apologies, for sending the crawlers to meet you. We assumed he might be visiting without warning, and the crawlers are very fond of him and his sister. I understand they might have caused some confusion.”

The Overlander paused to decipher her words, then nodded stiffly. “That’s alright. They were…very accommodating.”

Temp, at the mention of his presence, scuttled forward to stand by Luxa’s left, settling onto his back legs. Vista relaxed visibly by a fraction when all her new acquaintances were in her line of sight, and once again Luxa felt a flash of compassion followed by flicker of apprehension. Even if this girl did not know the Warrior, it would not be a stretch to assume that she was one herself.

Luxa gestured toward the crawler. “This here is Temp, a good friend of mine. You may know his kind by the name of…cockroaches? I understand they can fit the palm of a hand in the Overland.”

“Actually, several of them can fit in your hand,” Vista replied, and for the briefest moment a small smile touched her lips. “They also tend to stay pretty quiet, and rarely carry torches.”

“Their presence must have been alarming. I imagine it is strange hearing the creatures here in the Underland speak as humans do. As for the light, they were out aiding our scouts and thus carried the torch for your benefit. Crawlers, of course, navigate very naturally in the dark on their own.” Luxa paused for a minute, trying to find a polite way to word her next inquiry. She was no longer eleven, and was beginning to understand her grandfather’s insistence on manners, in particular when dealing with guests. “But for this reason, your facial wear surprises me. I assume it blocks against the light of the sun, perhaps? I know little of the fashions in New York City.”

The Overlander’s hand flew up to her green visor, but it did not come off. Instead, when the girl’s arm dropped back down to her side her entire stance was stiffer, the set of her shoulder’s on guard as if tensing to act. “New York City?”

“Is that not from whence you fell?”

“I—of course. I am surprised you have been there, is all.”

Luxa allowed herself to smile. “Me, travel above? No, my duties demand much of my time, and visits to the Overland are rare as trees, as my grandfather used to say. No, we have had several visitors from New York before, and they have told us of your settlements. I imagine you must be very eager to return, right now.”

Luxa could recall the hectic conditions that had followed Gregor’s arrival—the desperate chase when he tried to run down the Waterway, his difficulty in grasping his true fate as the Warrior, and how his father’s continued survival may have been his only reason for staying peacefully. Luxa was still proud, perhaps too much so, but she was nothing if not willing to learn from past mistakes. This Overlander would be offered the opportunity to leave, as soon as possible. Besides, this girl was really throwing her off. Something about the vigilant demeanor and the careful responses screamed at Luxa to take caution herself.There was enough strife to deal with in the Underland already, without a powerful stranger in her city. Besides, if it was an Overlander that was to visit, she knew who she needed. And it certainly wasn’t Vista.

The girl in question seemed to have pulled herself together since her home had first been mentioned. She nodded briskly, smoothing out some dust in her skirt with one hand. “Yes, I would like to return as soon as possible, please. It was nice to meet you, but there are people waiting for me. You probably know the best way to get out of here.”

Luxa was slightly offended at the verbiage—it was still foreign to her, how quickly the Overlanders were put off by her own home. It was a violent and often chaotic place, she could cede that much, but it also held untold wonders. If she ever did have a chance to visit above, she would not have been so eager to escape without first exploring. Then again, those that fell descended without warning, from lives of their own. She thought briefly again of Gregor, his younger sisters, and the entire family that had been dragged into her kingdom's war before forcefully pushing the memories out of her mind. No, she did not have the right to judge the Overlanders.

“We will try our best to send you home as soon as possible. However, at the moment I am afraid it is not possible.”

Vista’s fists clenched, but when she spoke her tone was very even. “Why is that?”

“You smell strongly of the Overland. There are deadly creatures down here that have already been alerted of your arrival, and they will pursue us if you do not bathe first. With your scent masked, we will have better chances at making our way unhindered to the Waterway.”

“What kind of creatures, exactly?”

Luxa was willing to excuse the Overlander’s disorientation, but doubt was another manner. She had been kind enough to welcome the visitor, but now Vista seemed almost suspicious that the advice she was offering was faulty, or ill-intentioned. This Vista had no inkling of the kind of horrors that awaited her in the tunnels, outside the boundaries of Regalia’s walls.

“Firstly, the gnawers, which you know as rats. They are deadly fighters and our truce with them is yet young,” Luxa began, her voice distinctly colder.

Vista was opening her mouth to interrupt when Luxa heard paws striking the ground at a run behind her, a steady gait. The two of them snapped around to see a hulking figure bounding toward them, covered in shaggy grey fur and marked with battle scars. The largest mark was, of course, the large ‘x’ sliced across his face, the ends of the now-healed wounds pointing down across his snout.

Ripred was making a beeline for Luxa, all four legs working at full speed. “Spreading defamations about us already, your Majesty?”

Luxa flung an arm at him to slow his advance. Her other bond had been instructed to wait in the tunnel, as backup until they had a good read of their new visitor. Damn him, the old scoundrel; she shouldn’t have expected he would follow instructions even once. He was showing no sign of stopping, so she aimed to put herself between him and Vista. Before she could take her first step she looked down and stopped cold, nearly tripping despite her impeccable balance.

There was something fundamentally _wrong_ with the ground. The turf beneath her feet was stretching at odd angles and distortions, as if someone had pulled it apart like clay. She cast a frantic glance at Aurora and then looked around the stadium. The entire arena was _swelling,_ the walls bulging outward while the space to her right was expanding in wavy trajectories.

Vista was in the middle of it, lips in a thin line, her visor directed at the rat headed their way. She waved one hand almost carelessly and yet another piece of the floor, which should have been only a dozen feet from where she, Temp, and Aurora stood, began to unfurl itself at an impossible angle.

Perhaps _dangerous_ had been too mild of an assessment, Luxa thought, as she jumped on Aurora’s back and took to the air.


	5. ARC I-4 | Reaction

Six feet tall.

The goddamned rat had to be at least six feet tall, and if Vista had thought that the cockroaches were disgusting then this monster was something else entirely. Fangs that could have been used as large daggers were protruding down over its lower lip, and each of the four hairy appendages were tipped with sharp claws. She would bet good money that the nasty scar across the queen’s face, which ran from her left temple to her chin, was the result of a fight with one of these creatures. And speaking of scars, this rat had a collection unlike any she’d ever seen. There were entire patches of fur missing across its chest and midsection where wounds had healed. They looked like places it had been sliced open, or perhaps _gnawed_ at. There were even marks on the rat's limbs. It seemed to favor the right hind leg, which must have been broken at some point. A disconnected little voice was simpering in the back of her head, _this is why I wear a costume, Luxa, visor and all._ Vista took one more look at the patchwork evidence of violent history on the rat’s body and was almost surprised that it was still alive.

Almost. There was something more akin to madness controlling her actions now, and it drowned out everything else. Fear was entirely beyond her. She had seen Endbringers rip better parts of continents into pieces; she could deal with a fucking rat. The chat with the queen had been nice—friendly, almost, or as close as she could hope to get, now—but she had been waiting for the other shoe to drop and it had done so punctually. Not even a half hour into this new world and something had finally tried to attack her.

No, what Vista felt now was frustration, bright anger mixed with almost desperate abandon. She had _not_ left Scion’s destruction behind her only to run headfirst into some underground hellhole that had all kinds of supersized vermin. If she still believed in god, she might’ve sent some choice words in their direction. All she’d wanted was a moment of quiet. If she had to kill a six-foot-tall rat to get there, then so be it.

“Overlander! He comes in peace!”

Odd, that Luxa apparently spoke for him. The queen wasn’t without her tricks as well. Whatever lifestyle these Underlanders—it sounded too much like _Undersiders_ for Vista's liking—had adopted, it evidently required martial prowess. Luxa had vaulted like an Olympian onto the back of her bat without so much as batting an eye, and the way she was circling now, with a hand at her hip, told Vista everything she needed to know about the queen’s familiarity with the sword that must usually be strapped there. She could feel her skin literally tingling with the threats around her.

Whatever else Vista was ignorant about, she _did_ know how to deal with threats. There had been alternatives, back when she had been a young hero. Words, and negotiations, and rubber bullets. But then the number of colossal monstrosities threatening the planet had scaled up to a neat half dozen, and their greatest hero had turned into the worst horror of all. No, Vista was quite sure how to deal with evils now.

Swiftly, harshly, and with no room for compromise.

Luckily, the arena was sparse when it came to life forms. Luxa and her companions had been grouped together, so it had been easy to manipulate the space to their left and the open field behind them. The rat had been damned fast, and while Vista was perfectly aware she was limited by speed she did have ample _space._ The queen had done her the favor of going airborne and minimizing limitations even further. There had been open field all around her, too, and Vista could now feel her power extending all the way up through the arena’s stone walls. The spaces where she could not push and pull at the solids were of little consequence, in this landscape—the air around her was already gouging out in waves, distorting her surroundings like a mirage.

The walls were tall, curved sentinels now, the top edges having extended hundreds more feet into the air. The cavern ceiling itself could even be within her grasp, if she pushed hard enough. Perhaps this _had_ been a good place to fall. Open air, if Vista thought about it, was its own restriction. Here, there were endless materials in which to ground her power. In her mind’s eye, she could see the arena pulling inward, the edges reaching around like a fist to crush all of them.

“Vista!”

The name startled her. _Vista_ was the name of a heroine. Someone who believed in protecting the innocent, defending the weak, standing up against the manipulative evils that clawed around every corner. Vista had believed in second chances.

What had been the point? That girl may as well have perished on Bet. There was nothing to protect, anymore. 

When Vista opened her eyes, her power had halted. The arena was still a gross, twisted version of the beautiful structure she had stepped into, but the effect had frozen. The walls were jagged, the curves unnatural, some edges extending into points in all different directions. The turf was nearly a maze, bumpy where it should have been smooth and pulled apart in swirls of moss.

The cockroach was off somewhere to her right, hunkered down, antennae twitching. He looked very small. She looked up to see Luxa, her new acquaintance, was hovering above her on the bat. She was probably trying to fly down by her shoulder, but the golden bat kept getting turned around in the condensed, warped space and was sweeping around in disoriented half-circles. The rat happened to be the closest, the result of its original proximity before she had started using her power. It was—well, it was entirely calm. As Vista glared at it, the furry figure a green-tinted mass in her visor, the rat shifted back onto its haunches and raised a paw with a sharp object in it.

Vista almost let the red mist descend again before she realized it was a hunk of rock, nothing more sophisticated. The rat held it with both front paws and brought the stone to its mouth, and a horrendous grinding sound ensued as it began filing a fang.

They were all silent, nearly still. The only sound breaking the emptiness was the scratching of teeth against mineral and the occasional flap of the bat struggling to stay on course in the air above her.

A minute later, the rat finally paused, letting out a small sigh as it turned to look around the arena. Its snout bobbed up and down.

“Well, that sure was a nice show.”

“He is not an enemy, Vista!” Luxa called from somewhere over her head. “This gnawer is my bond—my close friend—and he would not harm us.”

Well, that was something of a conclusion to her threat assessment. Vista breathed out. She felt a sharp pain in her arm, then, and looked down. She had been clenching her fists so tightly that the nails had bitten into the flesh. The tendons were standing out, making her wrists seem bonier than they were. She took another slow inhale and slowly relaxed her hands. They were shaking, and not subtly. 

With halting flaps and some stumbling hops, the golden bat touched down next to Vista—or as close as it could get—and the queen slid off, rushing forward. Luxa stepped into the space between her and the rat, arms extended. Vista felt a sudden and incomprehensible urge to laugh. What a mediation effort _this_ was.

“Overlander, what did you _do?_ ”

As those burning violet eyes turned to glare at her, Vista realized it wasn’t a mediation at all. There was true fury contorting the queen’s pale face, but the regal features were also touched with a hint of fear. Vista felt her heart throw itself forward erratically at her ribcage as something in her stomach twisted. _She_ was the threat, now.

“I—I’m sorry. I didn’t—” Her teeth seemed to be chattering.

The rat took a few steps forward, peering at her curiously and ignoring Luxa’s protests. Vista was close enough that she could see clearly into those dark rodent eyes, and something there looked strikingly familiar. When it—no, Luxa had said _he—_ spoke, the gravelly voice was gentle.

“It’s alright, Overlander. I wasn’t here to hurt you. Needed to deliver a message to Luxa, that’s all.”

Vista nodded. She didn’t want to speak—there were plenty of words on hand, but thought of her voice shaking again in front of this company was unbearable.

The rat was smiling a little, but it wasn’t a taunt. It was actually as nice as she could have expected something like him to look.

“Now, that was a neat trick and all, but we’d all really appreciate it if you could change it back. I mean, if you can. I, for one, am enjoying the view. The humans haven’t ever built anything like _this_.”

Luxa turned the dagger-glare at him, relieving Vista for a moment. "Ripred!"

The rat threw both paws in the air in a gesture that was way too human. “Yes, yes, unfortunately the lovely queen is rather attached to her city in its original form, and this might get a tad in the way of its...architecture.”

Vista concentrated, ignoring the rat's chuckle. This time she reached through the layout deliberately, relying on coherent thought instead of emotion. Manipulating this much space always made her feel a little heady, and right now the insides of her skull most have been shrinking against her brain. Luxa being on the ground made it more difficult, but then again removing her effect did not require as much effort. Slowly, carefully, Vista brought the arena back. The walls climbed downwards, the field realigned itself, and the swirling patterns in open space untangled.

They were all together now, all but a handful of yards between each of them.

Luxa was one tense line, teeth grinding together. When she turned to look at Vista, the gesture was so sharp a few loose strands of blonde hair flew whipped around her face. The clear foreign voice was as even and cold as a frozen-over lake when she spoke.

“Explain, Overlander, what in the _flaming Firelands_ you have just done.”


	6. ARC I-5 | Power

Vista was still shaking like she’d been dunked in ice water. There was a glaring disconnect between her body and her thoughts; a part of her inner function wasn’t quite syncing with the external world. She was one tense, trembling raw nerve, and starting to get the sense that she was not entirely in control.

An acute pang of longing for the Wards HQ suddenly made Vista’s heart clench. She wanted nothing more than the few feet of space in her own corner of that room, where she could hunker down and share some uninterrupted peace with people who _understood._ The last thing she wanted to do right now was explain. Fighting the urge to wrap her arms around herself, Vista instead settled for crossing them over her breastplate and meeting Luxa’s challenge head-on.

“You said the rats were dangerous.”

“That’s awfully sweet of you, Luxa,” the rat named Ripred drawled. The stone he was gnawing on split in two, and as it crumbled he grabbed onto the larger piece and kept at it with the other fang.

“I am uninterested in _excuses,_ Overlander. None that have fallen have threatened us like this.”

“It was not a _threat_ , _Your Majesty_." If this teenage monarch thought that she was a threat, Vista would have loved to introduce her to some of the other horrors on the surface. "Your ignorance of the powers aboveground is not my problem.”

“So that is what you call it. A power.”

Vista grimaced, and then realized several things in quick succession.

First, that despite having spent no more than a handful of minutes in the New York City above her head, she knew more about whatever Earth she had landed in than Luxa did. The girl had never visited, she'd said so herself. There could be some big differences between dimensions—people’s lives and families were altered, cultures became distorted, and supposedly Brockton Bay didn't even exist in some of the alternate planes. She had been thrown when Luxa had first name-dropped the Big Apple, but the pale girl had not questioned Vista's origins despite her brief stumble. 

Secondly, the queen referred to her whatever kingdom she ruled as a _city,_ not a country or even a territory. Vista had already gotten a good look around the place, and having sunk her power regularly into the streets of Brockton Bay she was confident that this Regalia—if she had remembered it correctly, anyways, it was a name pretentious enough to have been ripped out of a children’s novel—was several magnitudes smaller. The space and architecture couldn’t have comfortably allowed for more than ten thousand people, but realistically the population was probably half that. Luxa simply did not have context for the enormity of the Earth above her.

And the queen’s reaction spoke louder than any of that. Her right hand kept twitching and clenching, never more than inches from her hip, and she looked not just tense but ready to spring. Something was holding her back, and having acted as both hound and fox, Vista could just about smell the fear. While Luxa did not seem the kind of person that would stall in the face of danger, Vista doubted she had a solution for the powers she had just seen. Fighting an oversized rat and a parahuman, after all, were different problems entirely.

Which put the heroine in, as much as she hated it, a place of distinct advantage. Perhaps Vista had a right to be suspicious, but she did not have a right to antagonize the people who had welcomed her into their home. The shame that burned through her flushed her entire face red. Was she a hero still, if away from the familiar she reacted like this?

“I apologize. I saw Ripred and—overreacted. It has, um, it’s…been a long day.”

An understatement for the century. Violet eyes looked her up and down, the brow furrowed, the face drawing closed. The friendliness and welcome that Luxa had offered just minutes ago, albeit hesitantly, had vanished.

“This power that you possess. How does it work?”

“Luxa, perhaps interrogate the Overlander at a later—”

The princess didn’t so much as glance in Ripred’s direction. She stepped closer to Vista, bolder now with her chin tilted upward and gaze set just south of haughty. “Explain it to me, so that I understand.”

Vista bit her lip. She _did_ feel guilty about using her power on the undeserving, but trust was another matter entirely. In her experience, keeping cards close to the chest tended to be the way capes operated. The more powerful the parahuman, the greater and more destructive the secrets. Vista wasn’t too keen on the tactic herself—just look how it had turned out for the PRT—but she was really floating without an anchor here. Telling them too much was risky, but on the other hand she couldn’t deny what they had already seen with their own eyes. A more pressing bargaining chip, on the other hand, was Luxa’s knowledge of a safe escape route. The only humans in miles in this underground nightmare were not a group that she wanted to antagonize any further.

“I warp space,” Vista began, not entirely sure where to start. “I can distort the landscape, expand or contract what I want.”

Luxa cocked her head to the side, breathed out slowly. “You can do this with any place? How did you manage to fall, Vista, with a gift like this?”

A gift, indeed. “I have to ground my power in something solid first, before the effect spreads. The fall was difficult to control. Also, it doesn’t work everywhere. Living material interferes.”

“Beings? Like us?”

For demonstration purposes, Vista pointed a toe forward at the turf around her. The adjustment was very small, something which she actually found harder and more mentally demanding than larger works. As Luxa watched, the stretch of moss in between them started to extend and bend just slightly. Vista only got about three feet before the resistance stopped her. There was a clear demarcation—not a line, but perhaps the lack thereof—on the ground. At the queen’s feet, the moss remained mostly unchanged, the unnatural swirl of Vista’s manipulation failing to reach it at the same intensity. She was capable of pushing further, going around like she had earlier, as Luxa was only one person and not very big besides. But now wasn’t the time to get into the details, so Vista reigned it in.

Luxa, in response, stepped closer, and as she placed a foot on the little spot of distortion she frowned. “My presence does not disperse it.”

“You only interfere with what I can affect. Whatever surfaces I pick have to be relatively unoccupied, but anyone can walk on them afterward.”

“And you have no limitations to the amount of ground you can cover?”

“I haven’t really tested that,” Vista replied, only half-lying. Technically, she hadn’t ever reached an upper limit.

“Alright, that’s plenty enough to work with for now,” Ripred finally cut in, tossing the last pieces of stone away. “We have more important matters to attend to.”

Vista felt positively warm towards the rat about twice her size, for getting in the way before Luxa could ask any more. There were details she much preferred to keep to herself, and before the question of power origins came up she would really prefer they all took a seat and found some popcorn. 

“ _More important_ matters?” 

“I received news from the southeastern wall,” Ripred responded. “You want to get down there, Your Majesty. At your absolute earliest _convenience.”_

“And you didn’t think to mention it earlier?”

Luxa was already moving, sprinting a couple of steps forward and throwing herself into the air with an elegant low twist that could have been in a cheerleading routine. Then she was perched on the golden bat’s back, waving dismissively at everyone on the ground.

“Temp, accompany the Overlander to the palace immediately. Ripred, you stay with them, but as soon as she is settled meet me in the private conference room.”

“And the Council?”

“Pardon?”

“What are we telling the Council, Luxa?”

The rat and the monarch exchanged several glances that Vista could not read. Luxa’s face was flushing with frustration now, a bright scarlet that reached down her neck and nearly to her shoulders. She really was incredibly pale.

 _"We_ are not telling them anything," Luxa finally sighed, tossing her silver-sheened braid over her shoulder. “No one here will utter a word about our guest’s powers, under royal seal. The matter will be revisited as soon as possible.”

Without so much as a goodbye, the young queen turned away as her golden bat spread her wings. With a few powerful flaps, they were soon a dot disappearing over the arena’s smooth grey walls.

“Really, thought she’d never leave.”

Vista relaxed just a bit despite herself, turning to offer the oversized rodent a small smile. “You really didn’t need to have my back.”

“Oh, my pleasure,” Ripred replied, “anything to piss off our generous queen.” Vista didn't bother to point out that he hadn't answered her implied question— _why_ was he on her side?—as the rat gestured to the other end of the arena. A pair of gigantic stone doors flanked the exit. “Shall we?”

Vista nodded and they settled into step together, Temp the cockroach scurrying up next to the rat’s other side. The bug’s movement was deceptively quick and entirely too similar to his smaller counterparts. They were probably just as numerous down here, too. An errant shiver went down Vista’s spine.

Ripred stepped forward to deal with the doors, which seemed to be sealed. There was a small crack in them barely wide enough for him, and which must have been how he had entered earlier. But Temp’s wide shell didn’t look like it was going to squeeze through, and Ripred didn’t seem like the type to suggest a single-file march into the dark.

The rat had just placed a paw on the stone when he turned his triangular head to stare at her, then flicked his snout toward the doors. “Actually, do you mind?”

Getting his meaning, Vista shrugged. He stepped away, and she let her power creep forward. The doors were of an extremely solid make; the mass there was dense and probably took several people to open when the stadium housed an audience. She took stock, taking a second to measure, and then crumpled.

The thick stone folded back into the sides of the arched frame like tinfoil, leaving only vague slate colored globs flanking the entrance.

There was a low, throaty chuckle at her side. “Vista, was it? I didn’t want to force a word in earlier, but you’re damn powerful, kid.”

The phrase was wrapped in someone else’s voice, someone else who used to only carry an arbalest and who used to _be a heroine._ Vista pushed the image of Foil out of her head, trying not to flinch. “Thanks.”

“Great power, you have, great power,” a hiss resounded from Temp as his antennae vibrated. “Take much time, Overlander could, take much.”

“Don’t mind him,” Ripred threw over his shoulder as he settled back on all fours and bounded forward.

Vista followed, offering the bug a stiff nod as she advanced. She didn’t understand the words, and wasn’t sure she wanted to. Every time the insect spoke the hairs on her arms stood right up.

The tunnel was short, would have been even if her power hadn’t condensed it slightly. Sparse stone torches to lit the way, but soon they were at a small arch. Vista took one look at the fluttering wings floating in front of it and stumbled.

“They’re just moths, Overlander.”

Taking a deep breath, Vista stepped through as quickly as possible. Just moths, until you got swarmed by a conscious, vicious cloud of even relatively harmless bugs. At least they weren’t human-sized. Fortunately, she passed in and out of the cloud without incident, the soft brushes of tiny wings sending goosebumps cascading down her arms. She flashed back to her stadium entrance and felt even more disgusted—she had definitely passed through these before, only last time she hadn’t seen them coming.

“A peculiar warning system, but it works terribly well,” Ripred explained. “When we pass through, their flight pattern is disturbed, and the bats pick up on it. Gives the humans sufficient warning if company’s coming, anyways.”

Vista didn’t reply. She couldn't, because she was marveling at a sight so magnificent it took her breath away. Spread in front of her, covering a large, softly sloping valley, was the most beautiful city she had ever seen.


	7. ARC I-6 | Regaled

When she was younger, on nights when her mother and father would rage at each other late into the night and she had yet to join the Wards, Vista would lock herself in her room. She was often still there when the police would inevitably come calling, at a neighbor’s concerned report of a domestic disturbance.

In those hours while words that no child should hear were flung across the house—often with furniture and smaller appliances—Vista would look out at her city. Sleep was sparse and troubled, in those days, so she had stared and stared, wishing and dreaming that she was anywhere else. At first, she’d gaze into the night sky, even as light-polluted as it was, but that got boring after a while. Eventually the street itself was sufficient; the streetlights, the people, the traffic, the occasional disturbance. She had studied the patterns of the cars and the late-night walk-takers, the barking dogs, the planes overhead and the tips of skyscrapers. There were the rarer sights too. Once she thought she saw a comet streaking by, and read online the next morning that it had most likely been Purity on one of her vigilante hunting missions.

Back then, Brockton Bay had been beautiful. Flawed, and packed to the brim with parahumans of all inclinations, but it had been her home. She had found some solace in the beating heart of the metropolis even before she became a Ward, and when she began working for the PRT she learned to love the Bay more. Vista was dealing with criminals and violence and the worst kind of people, but there was something soothing about the streets even at night. She had been keeping people safe, people tucked in beds with pets and partners. To a twelve-year-old who had not wanted to be sheltered by anyone, that feeling had been more powerful than any of her abilities. The city had been relying on _her_ for safety, and that could not be taken away.

She couldn’t remember, now, what it had looked like. Or she could, but it was in bits and pieces, brief flashes of the brilliantly lit office buildings or the iridescence of the force field around PRT headquarters. The way it had made the building look overexposed, saturated with color. How _alive_ everything had felt, even when she was contorting simple inorganic surfaces.

The feeling, so new and almost intoxicating when she had first developed her powers—to think, these were places people lived, walked and worked and spent their lives, never doubting the landscape around them—had faded almost entirely. She had spent more of the last two years flying away from her broken, rubble-strewn wreck of a home than truly living in it. It wasn’t that her heart had left Brockton Bay; it was more that most days she had little heart left for anything. It was always an unending grey trudge forward to reach the next attack and curb the next wave of devastation, as much as they possibly could.

Sometimes, it had felt more like throwing herself into a meat grinder than anything else. Vista had just about travelled the world, these last eighteen months shuttling across Bet, but in reality she had seen more destruction and ruins than she had seen cities.

Vista had not realized how much she had missed the sight in front of her.

She had known, had sensed out the stone structures and the paved roads and the vague shape of the larger buildings. But it had been more of a desperate glance than a truly detailed assessment, and she knew now that the map in her head would not have compared.

She was standing on the edge of a valley filled with the most artistic buildings she had ever laid eyes on. Everything looked a hint medieval, but in a purposeful way and slightly skewed from any design she was familiar with. The buildings were a misty gray, dreamlike underneath the towering cavern above. Not seeing the sky wasn’t even alarming, not with a view like this. The structures rose out of the ground almost naturally, reminding Vista of some of Labyrinth’s creations. The shapes were much softer, though, well inhabited; the tallest buildings were at least thirty stories tall and designed with delicate peaks and turrets that Brockton Bay had never boasted of. She blinked out at the roads and realized that the structure of the city was meticulous, carefully planned to make a sensible maze.

Thousands of torches lit the entire establishment, and the entire place glowed with a soft, dusky light. The most striking thing was the art itself—every stone surface, every statue and avenue crawled with depictions of life. Humans, cockroaches, fish, rats, and other mystical creatures she could not name battled and danced and dined on every inch of open space. The city was a tapestry, and it put the cherubs and gargoyles that she knew decorated the New York above her to shame.

“Nice place, the humans have,” the rat was grumbling.

Vista’s vision misted slightly. She reached up, turning away from where Ripred was waiting for her a couple paces ahead, and made a quick little show of adjusting her visor so she could swipe at her eyes. She blinked and they were dry, but her veins were still racing with liquid nostalgia and wonder.

“This is the human city? Regalia?” she asked, as they set off into the city.

“Plenty of flyers here, too. The bats. Humans and flyers have been pretty tight for centuries, the strongest alliance down here between any two nations. Of course, most of the flyers also live in their own lands.”

“There aren’t humans settled anywhere else?”

“This is prime grounds right here, Overlander. You haven’t seen it yet, but the Waterway travels right through here with food, clean water, and plumbing. Not to mention it’s pretty easy to defend. They have some suburbs around the city. The humans tend to group together, although there’s another smaller settlement southeast of here as well.”

Vista nodded. She had actually gotten a pretty thorough look at the veritable sea they had down here, not that she was going to say anything. She hadn’t reached as far as the other human city in her earlier mental map, but she would take his word for it. With the creatures she had met so far, she could imagine there were far less habitable regions in the Underland.

Ripred raised a paw that could have knocked her out with a good swat and pointed to the largest building she could see, a staggering circular fortress at the far edge of the valley. “That’s the palace, where we’re headed.”

“I didn’t expect…” Vista started, before catching herself. A tentative ally or not, she didn’t want to offer any unnecessary thoughts to the rat.

He didn’t seem to notice. “What, for it to be this beautiful? You Overlanders are always surprised by the extent of civilization down here. As if your kind would get any less creative underground.”

It wasn’t the creativity she was marveling at, but perhaps resourcefulness. And the availability of the resources themselves to back it. Vista looked at the stone expanse, realizing part of the foreign feeling was due to the lack of flora. Not that much would grow down here.

“So…you’ve met other Overlanders?”

“Just the handful. Used to be, my kind didn’t play very well with the humans. Never did, ever since they arrived; centuries, that hatred’s been growing. Hence Luxa’s warning. I was one of her only allies, back then.”

Centuries. Which would put humans down here when? Around the sixteenth century? Something to ask Luxa later, if the queen was in a better mood. “What happened?”

“I won over my species with my stunning leadership and oration skills, of course. And then we penned a beautiful peace accord. Not a drop of blood spilled.”

Vista snorted. She didn’t even need the rat’s dripping sarcasm. However different the land, Vista knew that kind of solution was never, ever the case. She didn’t even bother to prompt Ripred forward, just waited in the amiable silence.

“Alright, alright,” he grunted after a moment. “Where to start? I guess…well, about five years ago an Overlander fell. His name was Gregor. Just a kid, same age as Queen Luxa. They called him the Warrior. A few months after Gregor’s first visit, a rat of legend was born to the gnawers, too. _His_ moniker was the Bane.” Ripred paused, scratched his nose with one paw. “You know, in summary it doesn’t sound half as bad.”

Vista thought about the world above her head and across a doorway, a world ravaged into pieces. Millions dead. She wondered if she could tell that story in a few minutes. “Let me guess. There was a war?”

“You _do_ catch on quickly. We call it the Great War, now. Lots of other participants, too, wasn’t just the humans and the gnawers.”

Temp made some clicking noises, and his hissing voice rose out of them. “Lost much time, many did, lost much.”

That time phrase again. It was easier to parse, this time; Vista could tell he was referencing those that had died in the conflict. Time must be their word for life. She thought back to his earlier statement, shuddered again. Is that what he thought of her? That she was a killer?

“Long story short,” Ripred was saying, “at the end of it all we broke the code the Bane's army was using to communicate. They broke soon after, and at the end of it all the Treaty of Claw was made. Temp, here, was a part of that.”

“You weren’t?”

“Oh, there was a lot of squabbling about what compromise would look like. Didn't look like it was going anywhere. And then we were offered a nice little suggestion: that the delegates debating the terms from each nation should be voted upon by every _other_ group there. Needless to say, I’m not _that_ popular.”

There was a strange note of pride to his voice—not in reference to not being chosen, but when he spoke of the solution. Vista filed that away, too, for later questioning.

“And the peace talks worked?” It seemed too simplistic, wrapped up too neatly in a bow. She tried not to think of her home, the wasteland it had become. They would need more than a treaty when she returned.

“As well as they could be expected to,” Ripred sighed. _Not very well,_ Vista filled in for herself during his brief pause. “But that’s another can of worms. Hopefully, we’ll get you back upstairs before you need to worry about any of it.”

And by then, maybe this _would_ become a bad dream. Not that Vista had any shortage of nightmares, lately.

She had been watching the people in the stunning buildings as they passed by, and more and more of them were staring openly back at her. It wasn’t hostile, just blatant curiosity, but it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. They were all pale as Luxa, with their sheer skin and metallic hair and strange eyes.

“They haven’t seen anything like you for a while,” Ripred explained. “Visits from the Overland are pretty rare.”

There was a flash of cold dread through her stomach. “But Gregor? What happened to him?”

“He made five trips down here. On the last one, he killed the Bane. We had barely started to negotiate the treaty when he returned home, with his family. _That’s_ a long story too; his parents and younger sister’s all got dragged down here at the end.”

“But they’re safe?”

“As far as we know. They all left for the Overland years ago, and we haven’t received word from them in a while. It wasn’t their world, in the end. Last I heard, they were looking to move out of New York City.”

Vista felt a pang of sympathy for a boy she had never met before. But no, Gregor was somewhere in the Earth above, and he had to be her age now. She did some quick math and realized both he and Luxa were just a year older than she was—probably less, given any varying birthdays. Still, she knew a thing or two about being an adult at twelve years old.

“Is that how you know of New York? Gregor told you about it.”

A few details about this alternate dimension might be nice, but Ripred just shrugged.

“We only have snippets. Of course, I hear plenty from my smaller brethren up there, but the humans only have hints. We don’t care much for news because we don’t meddle up there. The entrance you fell from, into those tunnels? That one leads from the city. It’s one of the few survivable entrances, especially with the currents. The others land in the waterway and the Dead Lands, and you were damn lucky to avoid them.”

Vista decided to skip over the fact that rats apparently talked to each other, even ones of the normal variety. “I’m guessing I wouldn’t have survived an unlucky fall.”

“You?” Ripred chuckled to himself. “Given your talents, maybe you would have made it. Anyone else, though, not so much.”

On that grim thought—how many people had fallen to horrible deaths down here, without so much as an explanation, buried forever millions of miles below ground?—they continued the rest of their walk in silence.

It took about twenty minutes to reach the palace. It was even more alien up close, and as they approached the polished stone wall Vista realized there was something missing. She casted a sidelong glance at the rat. “They’re not fans of doors?”

“It’s for security, to keep enemies at bay. Most Regalians fly in and out with their bond.” At Vista’s look, Ripred continued, “Bats and humans form close friendships here. The life and death kind. The bonds, they fly together.”

“Like Luxa and…”

“Aurora. That’s her flyer’s name. Luxa technically has two bonds, but…”

“Who’s the other? Do they fly together too?”

It was Ripred’s turn to snort. “The other one is _me,_ Vista, and talented as I am that’s not exactly in my wheelhouse. No, that little stroke of genius on Luxa’s part is what helped soothe the enmity after the war, four years ago.”

He paused, and Vista followed his gaze to the platform that was being lowered down on ropes. It stopped about a foot from the ground and the two of them stepped on, Vista grabbing onto a rope to steady herself on the swift, even ascent.

When the platform leveled off at a window, Ripred climbed onto the small stone staircase at their feet with a little grin on his face.

“What?”

“You didn’t even need that, did you? Could probably bend most of that wall to your liking.” His voice was lowered, even though Vista couldn’t see anyone in the corridor ahead.

Vista shrugged. “Thought we were keeping my power under seal or something. Best not to scare anyone else, right?”

“Mm. Smart girl.”

A couple of Overlanders walked into the spacious hallway then, a man and a woman. Both were tall and muscular with light hair and violet eyes. The man was limping a little, leaning on a cane, but it looked to be more the result of an injury than age—he was in his forties at most. The two of them looked like soldiers, or at least nearly as well versed as Luxa had been.

“Perdita and Mareth, meet you Vista the Overlander,” Ripred said.

Vista exchanged nods with the pair, and Mareth turned to the rat. “The queen let you escort her to the palace? I hope you haven’t filled her head with any atrocities in the meantime.”

“Only the juiciest tidbits of our vile history,” Ripred said with a wink, and Mareth grinned back.

“She needs to bathe, but I’m afraid I have to join Luxa at the wall,” he continued.

“Another attack?” It was Perdita who asked this time.

The words echoed unpleasantly in Vista’s head, and she tensed automatically. _What were they getting attacked by down here?_

But Ripred was waving a dismissive paw in the air. “Unsure yet. Let’s hope not. Temp and I better get going, we will bring news shortly. In the meantime, clean the Overlander up?” Ripred flashed those fangs in Vista’s direction in a savage grin before trotting off in the opposite direction with the cockroach.

Vista was left to stare at her two guides rather awkwardly. Perdita smiled, the expression barely reaching her eyes, and gestured down the hallway.

“Follow you to the waters, Overlander?”


	8. ARC I-B | Evaluation (Ripred)

“It doesn’t look good.”

It was a confirmation, not an inquiry. Ripred had gotten rather good at reading the queen now; he had watched her grow into the woman she was becoming, even found within himself some pride for the girl. It would have been one thing to forge a peaceful Underland with Solovet or even Vikus at the helm of Regalia, but Luxa had stood for something new. Ripred, at his age, often thought that past the stretch of youth there was no point teaching old dogs new tricks. Even the queen’s grandfather, in his years of attempted peace-making and diplomacy, had never gotten as far as this pup, who had grown into a formidable ruler.

They had built a tentative new era down here, where things moved quickly but changed so slowly. There had been the hint of something new, that very day when Luxa had offered her hand and he had repeated those old words back at her.

The problem was, it didn’t look like it was going to last much longer. Not without a fight, even though Ripred had long grown weary of participating in them. One look at Luxa’s face—drawn, the thin lips pressed tightly together, the violet eyes as hard and sharp as the tip of a blade—and he knew that his days of sparring with an enemy were not yet over.

“This is the third major attack in as many months,” Luxa replied. “Our lookouts improve every time in providing sufficient warning, but the city cannot be sustained if this rate continues.”

Ripred flicked his tail against the stone wall they were standing on and grunted, surveying the damage. Below him, the fields of crops that fed Regalia spread out into a rocky gray horizon, a green farmlands north of the kingdom reaching from the city wall to the one beneath their feet. The outer wall was shorter than the sort of fortification the humans had built to protect the heart of their civilization, but it was at least twelve feet thick. Well, in most places. The war had torn down large sections when the Bane’s army had stormed through, demolished the thick stone into piles of boulders that had been painstakingly cleared out. But the wall had not been rebuilt, not in its entirety.

The Treaty had demanded concessions from every nation in attendance, and Regalia had been made to serve more of the Underland than just those who wielded swords. There was a healthy trade between the humans and the gnawers now, a certain guarantee of foodstuffs and goods as the rats focused on moving out of the Dead Lands and into more habitable territory, considering large portions of the Labyrinth were also in disrepair. The wall was also, for the first time in Regalia’s history, open for relations between old enemies. It was a powerful gesture from a place that had been fenced in with centuries of unbreachable stone, one Ripred had not imagined he would see in his lifetime.

Lately, the trade center they had built in the wall—signified by an arch with a guard tower, so as to allow allies in and to signify the open borders—had been taken advantage of. About six months ago, during a shift change, a swarm of cutters had suddenly appeared from the tunnels about a mile north. Neither Ripred or the queen had been present, but according to the reports it had been swift and deadly. The cutters had amassed their numbers, and by sheer density overpowered the soldiers and their flyers.

The cutters proved a formidable enemy to the Regalian army, or at least the version that was now headed under Mareth. Not having Solovet at the helm, while generally a boon for the maintenance of peace, was nevertheless detrimental when new threats arose. Overall skill and the harsh necessity of training had dwindled somewhat in the intervening years after the general’s death, and while this was something Ripred had been hoping to see for decades the timing was all wrong. Having fought the single-minded, vicious insects himself and found them rather impossible to crack, Ripred and Luxa did not take the cutter attacks lightly.

“We must rebuild our defenses,” Luxa said.

“Good luck with that, Your Majesty.” Ripred stuck out one paw and started counting off on his claws. “First, you’ll need to wrangle the council. Even your grandfather’s delegate will be hesitant on this count.” He extended another sharp hook. “Second, Lapblood will have your hide before the motion is announced. And then,” he continued, spreading his appendage wider, to splay the digits, “we must not discount your other closest enemies—the nibblers—who will fear gnawer retribution, or the unsettled crawlers who keep shrewd eyes on their grain baskets, _or_ whether you even have people to spare for the job when you can barely keep the place guarded to begin with.”

Luxa let out a long sigh and shot him a look that was the opposite of regal. He shot back a toothy grin. While his seat in any formal hall was somewhat sporadic these days, Ripred was not entirely without political acumen. He’d just made a habit of not letting it dictate how sharply his tongue wagged.

“Would you have us declare war, Ripred? My people are still recovering from the siege, and the attack on the castle besides. Would that be a better image?”

“We are not without alternate solutions."

“For this destruction? They are trying to _starve_ us.”

“Need I remind you, gracious queen, my experience of true starvation? I assure you, Regalia is nowhere near the crises it forced upon the gnawers only years ago.”

As a senior advisor and her bond besides, Ripred had made clear that their partnership was never to be one of silence. Luxa had actually asked as much, one evening not long after Gregor’s final departure, during a quiet dinner in front of the fireplace in her large chambers. They did not hold their criticisms around each other, even if in front of formal company they had to curb the harsher words. They bickered more often than not because of it, but if the two of them trading jabs exposed the impetus for further violence before it could occur, it was a fair bargain.

“They must have a target,” Aurora cut through in her smooth, level voice before either of them could escalate. “We have already determined this is not a random or disorganized approach.”

She was right, and the other two fell silent for a moment, considering. Despite the unrelenting way in which the cutter swarm attacked, the conclusion was always the same, although the battles had gotten bloodier. As they had learned in the jungle, the cutters had to be cut down themselves before they would stop, and these recent attacks had been thwarted only when not a single member of the swarm was left standing. It was a waste of life if not conducted without reason, and as an attempt to truly starve out the city it was futile. Only a small portion of the crops were demolished each time, with the bottleneck opening and the guards in the way, and while her minions may have been uncomprehending or uncaring of this fact, the cutter queen was most certainly not.

“They are a hard enemy to fight,” Luxa mused, “but even harder creatures to contact. While I can not imagine this the first act of extended conflict on their part, it also does not speak to their general enmity. We have not antagonized them since the Prophecy of Blood, and if they wanted to strike a harmful blow to the warmbloods, the gnawers are overall in a much weaker position.”

Ripred didn’t argue that, as it was truth. Between the long recovery from the plague, the relocation, the Bane’s terrors, and the general lack of sustenance, his own kind had suffered a slow and arduous climb back from the brink of bare survival. If attacked, especially where families and pups nested, they would be a far easier target.

But yet, Regalia was bearing the brunt of the onslaught.

“We must discuss with Mareth, and the rest of your Inner Council,” Ripred concluded. “There is no use to pushing about theories without everyone present.”

Luxa grunted her approval—another unqueenly gesture that she had been schooled out of, but saved for her interactions with him—and climbed on Aurora’s back. The rat followed, crouching down behind her.

“In the meantime, I have doubled the patrol for the night,” the queen informed him.

“I doubt they will attack twice in a row, Luxa.”

“And that kind of thinking, Ripred, is what proves to me your growing age. Such a lack of precaution could be the very opportunity the cutters are waiting for.”

Her bond growled a little, although it was entirely without malice. “Let us return to the palace. If you are concerned about the defenses, I will join the guard tonight.”

Luxa turned around sharply to face him, the pale face stretched into surprise in the flickers of light that came up from beneath Aurora’s wings. The expression faded as she whipped back around, molding her reaction into one of cool dispassion and giving a simple hum of assent.

Ripred felt his lips curl around his fangs. “You know, a little appreciation would be nice.”

“Appreciation?”

“It is not every night I offer such valuable services to the crown,” Ripred replied loftily. “Is your faith in your own army dwindling, perhaps?”

“Those that serve me have done so to the best of their ability,” Luxa snapped back, glancing over her shoulder. “Your own concern for Regalia, however, is remarkably lacking as of late.”

The rat snorted. “Ah, this is about the Overlander.”

“No, this is about your loyalties.”

He almost laughed. “If after half a decade you still have reservations about my position on this particular fence, then we have not come as far as I thought."

The queen sighed, the petulance wafting from her. The muscles in her shoulders were tense, and the rat knew without seeing them that Luxa's fists were clenched in front of her.

“She is _dangerous,_ and her…abilities are completely unknown to us. Even the Warrior, rager that he was, only discovered such talents during his time in the Underland. And that was a phenomenon we have observed, not…”

Ripred chose not to remark on the fact that she had entirely stopped saying Gregor’s name and had recently started to referring to him in the past tense, instead continuing her train of thought.

“What, magic? Illusion? Myth?”

Luxa was shaking her head. “It should not be possible. I do not pretend to understand the workings of the Overland, or what dangers they face, but this is pure fantasy.”

“Four hundred.”

“What?”

“Four hundred to one. It’s when I begin to crack.”

“If you wish to boast about your own gifts, gnawer, now is not the—”

“What I am trying to say,” Ripred interrupted, “is that it should not be possible either. Look at your late grandmother, your uncle, Mareth, or even yourself—formidable warriors all, and trained above any normal semblance of talent. And yet, if truly pitted against _the_ Warrior or myself, even a fair duel at our best would be a slaughter. You cannot deny it. What I can do with claw and fang, what Gregor can do with a sword in moments of peril—they are unparalleled and not, if you are to be exacting, _natural_ to either of our respective species.”

“They are not the same. Ability on the field—”

“Vista can be useful on the field too, you have seen it yourself. I agree with you, she could pose unparalleled danger if she had a mind to. But her power is not entirely different from my own.”

“Your assumptions are much too great.”

“I make no assumptions, Your Majesty.” The rat sighed, pulled his front paws back and settled on his haunches as the queen finally turned fully around to face him. “That is precisely the point. What I have witnessed, in my arguably eventful life, has never failed to present me with the novel and unknown. Surprise wastes time and makes room for mistakes. We must deal with what we have witnessed as reality, lest it come to nip at our throats later.”

“You didn’t even attack her,” Luxa hissed back. Her face was flushed, with both anger and the last traces of the fear she had refused to show in the arena. “She unmade our stadium into a convoluted wreckage. Who knows the full extent of this power?”

“My best guess? It is much greater than she demonstrated.”

“And fet you stood an observer and made jest of the situation!” The queen was seething now, leaning forward so she was in his face. “I have not had many a reason to distrust you, Ripred, but this is beyond. We are to rise to each other’s defense, regardless of the source of the threat!”

“Tell me, Luxa, what would that threat have looked like, had the large, supposed attacker Vista was facing actually laid a paw on her? Even if only in restraint? Do you think that would have _stopped_ the parahuman?”

Luxa blinked, sat back on her flyer and closed her mouth. She was angry, but without a rebuttal. Ripred had run the answer to his own question in his head the moment the stadium began changing, and looking at the young girl in the strange dress with shaking hands, he had realized that it would be a fatal misstep. He could smell on the Overlander a strange scent that was reminiscent of Gregor but still a touch foreign. He had known before stepping into the stadium that whoever they were facing, they would not be a typical visitor. But Ripred had also smelled fear, and a rattling of the nerves that had reminded him of the gnawers’ prisoners, the ones kept in pits and tortured. He had no doubt in his mind that the girl had witnessed horrors enough—and going by the whiff of pure adrenaline paired with instantaneous action, fought them tooth and nail.

“What was the term you just used, Ripred? I have not heard it before, in reference to the Overlanders.”

The softer voice was Aurora, who was just gliding over stone towers and streets sparkling with torches, headed for a large circular fortress.

“Parahuman,” he explained, ignoring Luxa’s adamant silence. “The gnawers above, those of smaller stature, often whisper of the menaces on the surface. This has been a popular word on the lips of the Overlanders lately, as far as I was able to translate. The smaller gnawers are not the most sophisticated source of news, but with their numbers we are still reliable.”

“And you did not care to share this information with me?” the queen demanded.

“I saw no reason to, given that none have fallen for years. Besides, even on the surface parahumans seem few and far between, and theirs was not a conflict that would put our lands at harm.”

Luxa was frowning. “I have thought that perhaps we need to take greater precautions with this one. The dungeon, perhaps, or sequester her outside the city.”

The rat laughed a little. “I know you are shaken, Luxa, but you need to take a moment. There is a lot demanded of you at present, and we need to treat this with utmost caution. Throw her in the dungeon? You have seen what she did to the arena. Would you want to risk such contortions to the palace, and in the depths of the cells besides? Even with adequate life surrounding her, you’ll have to post someone in her _immediate_ vicinity, and that would prove counterintuitive. The same holds if we let her out of our sight.”

“Then,” Luxa got out between clenched teeth, “we will need to rid ourselves of this new arrival as quickly as possible.”

They landed softly in the High Hall, Aurora coming to a gliding stop. They both slid off her back and turned to each other.

“Mm. Do not be so hasty. She may be of use yet—especially given our present dilemmas."

Luxa’s eyes narrowed as his implication became clear. Ripred had been stewing over the suggestion all the way to the farmlands, turning the idea over in his head. If she could bend the arena and the doors with such ease, there was no reason why Vista couldn’t reshape the field borders accordingly.

“That is…you are…wanting to ask for the Overlander’s _help?”_

Mareth and Perdita were walking into the hall, now, flanked by Temp, whom Ripred had sent away before he reached the wall. After departing, he had thought the crawler would be better used to debrief the rest of Luxa’s advisors before their meeting.

“I am simply suggesting,” the rat answered softly, thinking of Gregor’s adamant repudiation for the Underland on his first visit, “that we ought to _consider_ convincing Vista to stay for a quick spell.”


End file.
